Week 1: Artists in Residence, Maggie and Oli with… Pelicans

Sophie- It is with delight I introduce our artists in residence (AIR) for the month, Maggie and Oli. They are our first AIR team and it will be fun to see where they take us.

Maggie- We began our residency on the 2nd of January with a bike ride around the lake. I wanted to make some time with Oli to discuss our plans and find some inspiration. We talked about our options for mediums and discussed a theme. We came up with ‘printmaking’ and ‘birds’. We’re starting with screen printing this week and a pelican.

We saw a beautiful pelican on our ride around the lake, who reminded us of Storm Boy (Colin Thiele), and the funny old poem about a pelican:

“A marvelous bird is the pelican

His beak can hold more than his belly can.

He can store in his beak

Enough food for a week

And I don’t know how the hell ‘e can.

At our half way stop on the ride, we talked about the question, if Art Were a Person….

Oli’s response was “If art were a person, it would be a friend, we’d have a calm and relaxing sort of friendship”.

Maggie’s reply: “Art is my very old friend, I haven’t seen her for some time. I liked her a lot when I was younger, she was inspiring and energizing to be with. These days however, I never to make time to see Art. I might bump into her when I’m out and about, she makes me smile, but she rarely gets invited into my house. I’m always too busy or too tired for her, besides, she is always so messy, I can’t be bothered tidying up after her! ………But maybe it’s time to find a way to reconnect with my old friend.”